Pastors Jim and Marie Watt
“UNDER YOUR WINGS” – 2008.05.16
This is a testimony to the Faithfulness of God to Himself and His Promises – and to the love of God.
This morning I either awoke very early, or was dreaming. These are the words I heard myself singing:
I am Thine, O Lord, And I heard Thy voice
And it told Thy love to me –
But I long to rise In the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.
Draw me nearer, Nearer Blessed Lord,
To the Cross where Thou didst die.
Draw me nearer, Nearer Blessed Lord --
To Thyself – The Crucified.
God has used both secular and spiritual means to answer this prayer of my heart, and to train me for His purposes. Following are a few highlights setting this forth.
In 1927 my step-grandfather, G.R. Gordon visited us in Dallas, Texas where my father was constructing a steam-electrical power house. Later in that year we moved to his home in Vancouver BC at 1109 Barclay St.
During the 1929 depression in 1933, he made available to us as a family a farm (one of some 50 properties he owned) in Murrayville, Langley BC. Each month of the 4 years we were there he visited us, and each visit left a 32 page gospel story called the Lily Series. I read all 48 of them, and resolved that when I grew up I would go to England and find the relationship with God described in the 48 stories I had read. I knew of no one at the time in Canada who had such an experience.
He also left a book with us entitled “Intra Muros” (Within the Walls) by Agnes Reuter Springer – a remarkable story by an Episcopalian lady of a 3 week visit to heaven when she was very ill in Canada. This too made a decided impact upon me.
I attended a full 4 years of Elementary School at Murrayville, and our principal, Mrs. Mary Ann Bilton of Yorkshire, England, drilled into us Latin proverbs during my time in grade 7 and 8.
“Mens sana en corpore sano” – A sound mind in a sound body. They go together.
And “Tempus fugit, et numquam recipit” – Time flies – and never returns.
God used her to make an impact upon me.
When we arrived on the farm in 1933, I would at night stare into the heavens – and marvel at the story they told of God and creation. I used to wonder – “What if there were nothingin this universe? What could it possibly be like?” The thought made me want to know the God of creation.
In 1937 the Great Depression started to lighten in our part of Canada, and my father received a position as Chief Engineer of Bloedel Stewart and Welch in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. We ended up living next door to Bill Wiles, the Math and Science teacher at the Alberni District High School. He would come over and play table tennis with my younger brother George and me, and we became very good ping pong players!
Then Mr. Wiles took 10 of the boys, and worked with them as a basketball coach. He carefully trained them in many plays, and had them practice them again and again, until they became a formidable team. They took the Vancouver Island championship, and then to our surprise the Vancouver mainland and BC one too. The ten went on to take Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba provincial championships, and became the top High School team for all of Western Canada. The ADHS “Termites” were famous across Canada, and their coach Bill Wiles made a decided impression upon me.
At that same time I played in the High School band to encourage the Termites on to their home victories. A former Salvation Army bandmaster heard me play, and thought I had potential for more that that as a band trombonist. So he offered me free lessons to prepare for the Vancouver Music Festival for solo instruments. We picked out “The Lost Chord” – and by the time we were finished, it was no longer lost! I came out first in the Province of BC for the trombone, coming ahead of the leading trombonist of the world famous “Kitsilano Boys Band.” Always I had a desire to be one of the “Kitsies.”
Then in 1942-43 I attended my second year of University at UBC (University of British Columbia.) Again I played in the UBC Varsity band for special events, led by Arthur Delamont, bandmaster of the Kitsilano Boys Band. They were due to go on tour, and were short 3 players. Three of us in the UBC Varsity band agreed to go on tour with them at the end of the school year – so my heart’s desire from farming days was fulfilled!
While attending UBC in the fall of 1942, God spoke to me for the first time in my life, though I did not yet know Him. I was reading Psalm 107:23-24 when suddenly the Spirit of God spoke inaudibly to my spirit, “If you join the Navy – I’ll reveal Myself to you!” I couldn’t tell anyone of this voice – because Essondale was the place they put people at that time who heard voices! I couldn’t tell my father why I couldn’t let him get me a commission in the airforce, and why I had to join the Navy.
Again – God was faithful! 9 months after I joined up he revealed Himself to me just as He promised.
Then in 1945 World War II was over. Sailors could get out a year early if they had a job or a school to go to. I had neither. In desperation I fasted and prayed all one night in the ship’s laundry in August of 1945. At 5 AM, God gave me a vision of a bicycle with a bent frame that I had sold in 1941 without telling the buyer of this. I asked God – “Why are you showing this to me?” “Because you won’t get out of the Navy till you make this right.” “But I wasn’t a Christian at the time,” I protested. My protest did no good.
So I started to bargain with God. “I’ll give him back the $20.00 I got from him in 1941.” No answer. I had read the Bible through in 6 weeks as soon as I was converted, to see what I had got myself into. I remembered reading that if you were late with your tithe; you had to add 20% to the principal.
So I said – “I’ll give him $24.00!” Immediately I heard from God – “Write George R. Hawtin, Bethel Bible Institute, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and ask to enroll as a student. No address! Nonetheless, I shortly received application forms for a new student.
I filled them out and returned them.
Shortly I received confirmation of my acceptance.
I brought it to my Captain, and requested my discharge. “Where do you want to be discharged, son?” he asked. “Esquimalt outside of Victoria,” I replied. Soon I was on a train from Halifax to Victoria. On the way I had the privilege of leading a discharged Airman to the Lord.
On the Sunday I was home in Port Alberni with my parents, my home pastor asked me to preach. Guess who was sitting in the 3rdrow in the aisle seat? The man I repaid the money to for the bike with the bent frame! How I thanked God for requiring me to make that wrong right!
Later when my father was on his death bed with cancer – this same man visited him every night for a month, and led him to the Lord. He later said to me – “Jim – if ever a man died right with God – your father was that man!” Thank God!
I arrived at BBI in Saskatoon in October 1945, two hours before registration closed, and saved a $5.00 late registration fee! A Scotsman’s bargain!
Then on February 11, 1948 God visited the former BBI, now the Sharon Schools of North Battleford, about 90 miles NW of Saskatoon.
I was a student minister and couldn’t look into this; but in April Ern Hawtin came down to the Princess Elizabeth High School Auditorium in Saskatoon to give a report. That very afternoon service I entered into the fullness of what took place February11th. Then in July they held a Summer Camp Meeting, and George Hawtin asked if I would serve as one of the 7 elders to lead the meetings. What a privilege! The presence of the Lord was so real you could cut it with a knife! 12 Embryonic Revival Principles came together at that time. The last of the 12 came in Edmonton in October – “The Heavenly Choir!” In 1944 someone lent me “40 Years of Signs and Wonders in the Life of Mrs. Maria Woodworth-Etter.” I was struck with the extraordinary account of “The Heavenly Choir.” The Holy Spirit whispered to me, “In the not too distant future, you will see this restored.” I shared this with Ern Hawtin in October of 1945. He asked when I thought this would happen. I told him, all I know was what the Holy Spirit told me – “In the not too distant future!”
In Edmonton October 1948 Ern Hawtin asked me if I would be willing to speak on “The Heavenly Choir” if his brother George agreed. He did. So I used Psalm 22 and Hebrews where it recounts Jesus worshipping the Father in the congregation of His saints – His spiritual body; plus many other relevant scriptures. When I went to sit down, I found Ern holding me to the pulpit – and urging me to believe God and launch out for this restoration.
We sang the old chorus “Hallelujah” twice, and then I urged the congregation to launch out and let the Holy Spirit take over. Within 5 minutes I heard worship such as I never heard before in all my life. It was Indian summer, and the windows of the church were open. Six blocks away 2 businessmen heard this, and were so intrigued that they followed their ears, and both were saved!
In June of that same year I made an offer to the Lord. I was preparing to go to North Africa to a Muslim country, and was learning Arabic. I felt it would be too dangerous to marry and bring a wife there. So I offered myself to the Lord with the “Gift of Singleness.”
He thanked me, but asked, “If I could link you with one where together the two of you would count more for Me in My Kingdom than either of you would alone, would you do it?” I answered Him that of course I would – but there was only one girl that would qualify, and she was Catholic and lived a life-style much livelier than mine – so I was safe!
3 days later I got an 8 page letter from Marie Gaudet telling me how she was reading the Bible 8 and 12 hours a day without stopping! My heart stopped! I invited her to the July Camp Meeting in North Battleford. Following that she attended the Hawtin meetings in Vancouver for 6 weeks without missing a meeting. During that time God gave her the Birth from Above, and baptized her in the Spirit. That December 27thwe were married in Port Alberni, and had our first date on our honeymoon!
In April 1949 God led us to the United States, and in September to the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary of Chicago. The following year He visited College and Seminary Campuses across the US with Revival, the second for me. It powerfully transformed our Seminary. 100 churches were revived and 1000 souls saved in 2 months through the student pastors involved.
Then in 1967 in answer to a request of Marie – I sought the Lord for clearer insights concerning His thinking on behalf of our united lives. That very night He gave me two visions. The first was concerning an automated laser telescope, that in the Spirit could remove principalities and powers from over cities, areas, regions and nations.
The second had to do with 70 teams of 8 who would be the organic laser telescope of vision number one. He used Zechariah 12:8 to illustrate the effectiveness of this. In Deuteronomy 32:30 one enemy of the Lord can drive 1000 to flight, but two, 10,000. How much more God’s servants walking with Him? But Zechariah says that in the last days, God will ensure that “the feeble” will be like David (10,000!), and they of the house of David like God (one million!). Two would be 10 million; two couples, 100 million; four couples, one billion!
These 70 teams of 8 each could remove principalities and powers over cities, areas, regions and nations, and as David mopped up the Philistines after God’s angels first moved in – so these teams could move in and mop up for God – cities, areas (Cascadia, the Pacific NW) regions and nations.
To help me understand the significance of this, God challenged me to ask Him for a Destiny Dream. I responded positively, in 1985. That very night, God had a medical doctor from Spain appear to me in Washington D.C. He informed me that my prayer request had been received by God that night, and that he had been sent to give me the answer. “Cervantes” – in one word – has all you need for your destiny dream. I found there is only one “Miguel Cervantes” in the Encyclopedia, the author of Don Quixote. He with his servant Sancho Panza did not team up too well. Quixote was so heavenly-minded that he was little earthly good, and he wasn’t properly teamed up with his practical servant, to get the help from him that he needed.
God politely informed that I was a bit too much like Don Quixote. But there was a practical side of me that he would help me to bring into balance. He would give 2 or 3 dreams a week to check me up on my progress (which He did). However – even when I achieved this balance – it would be insufficient – I would still be too much like Quixote. But Marie was very practical like Sancho Panza – and when we learned together how to move as one – Thenthe full purpose of our marriage would come together.
When we returned from our 3rdtrip to Israel in 1992, God gave me another vision in July. George R. Hawtin appeared to me (though he was now with the Lord). He was helping get ready for a conference of 6000, and because deacons were short, was helping out. He said to us – “I am too old to lead in another Visitation. You and Marie were both with us from the beginning – You know the 12 Embryonic Revival Principles that came together at that time. I pass the torch to you! Take it, and bring the 12 Embryonics to maturity – theyshall be parameters of safety for the last great revival before God’s Son returns!”
Well – I awoke with trepidation. In 1998 Richard Long from Toronto challenged me to write up the 12 Embryonic Revival Principles. He in turn sent them across Canada. The response for the full articles that he abbreviated led my son Jim Jr. to make a Website for me.
But things in the computer field quickly become dated, and my grandson Keelan said, “Grandpa, you need a place on your Website for ‘Archives’ containing your key articles. But really you need a new updated Website with the latest Computer Technology.”
He is about finished with this project, and will be releasing it to you in the not too distant future.
He has a “User Friendly” Homepage with a Top Bar bringing together the 12 Embryonic Revival Principles – the 12 Interlinear Greek Numeric Outlined New Testament portions that correspond, the Outlines to those New Testament books, plus the corresponding Greek Word Studies that bring it all together.
Now let us look at this again. February 11, 2008 was the 60thAnniversary for the North Battleford Visitation. Friends in Minnesota hoped to have a celebration to commemorate this event, but meeting facilities failed to materialize. So – the Rev. Dr. John Roddam of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle said – “Let’s do it here.” That previous Fall he arranged for ten 30 minute segments to be filmed in our home, in which he chaired Marie and myself to bring out the high points of the 1948 Visitation. This 3 DVD presentation is available by going to www.reason-for-hope.com. It was an overview of that that John again chaired February 11thand 12thin the church of which he is Rector.
All of the above I believe has been orchestrated by God. It is not that Marie and I are so special – but that God being God – He can choose whom He will for whatever assignment He is interested in. But prior to regular assignments, “Intimacy with Himself” is His Prime Assignment. It is our beingmore than our doingthat interests Him!
Look at the Title again – “Under Your Wings.” This is the way I see His dealings with Marie and myself in “Two Are Better than One” Ministries. So 2008 is not only the 60thAnniversary of the Latter Rain Visitation of 1948, but May 14thwas the 60thAnniversary of Israel becoming a nation again after nearly 2000 years – and the 60thAnniversary for Marie and myself obeying God in marriage.
So do we see God’s hand shaping our lives in these and many other events? Yes – both spiritual and secular.
Your friends – Jim & Marie Watt
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